Tuesday, September 26, 2006

boy do they have some kids' book ideas for you!

Calling all kids' book folks--writers, illustrators, booksellers, librarians, editors, etc. What has been the most OUT THERE story idea you've ever heard? I'm talking about those times when you're at a gathering and someone overhears that you have something to do w/kids' books. Then they immediately launch into the "I have a GREAT idea for a kids' book that I KNOW will get published soon..." and all you can do is sigh.

I'll start -- I was at a party a while back and a seemingly normal guy told me about his story idea. It was about a selfish child who loses her precious red shoes. She needs to be taught a lesson... (so far okay) and THEN things got interesting. "The girl whines that she can't find her shoes and Jesus comes in the form of a giant hand which comes from a cloud to tell her she doesn't need the shoes and she should learn her lesson..." This guy with beer in hand blabbed on and on about Jesus and shoes and even bunnies may have been involved, though I'm not sure. Then he said "So, you think you could help me with it?" "Help you?" I said. "Yeah, he replied, "help me get it published....

7 comments:

I don't have anything as wacky to tell--or, at least, if I did, I've blocked it from my memory. I think I received a submission for a picture book that was from the point of view of poo. I like poop fiction well enough, but that was going too far. Oh, and one of my colleagues recently received a picture books submission about getting your first period--but it was for the picture book audience ages 3-6 or 4-8), and had very extreme, graphic descriptions.

My apologies if the authors of these submissions are reading this now.

My favorite submission ever is photocopied & hanging on my wall at the office. It's a picture book about a girl's first hunting trip. I won't go into details, but it involves pictures of gutted deer dangling from hooks, and the memorable phrase, "slaughter shanty". If ever I'm feeling down at work, I just look to my wall, and the words "slaughter shanty" generally cheer me up.

I don't know if any of you know this, but where I grew up there were plenty of hicks around. SOME of them did hunt and eat squirrels. I'm not kidding. That's another chapter of my life that I may some day right about....

well, when I was first starting out I remember going to a crit group where one of the members wrote a poop story. It was kind of a non-fiction, learn about animals kind of story...with a child walking through the woods with her father and she would point at some poop and the father would say, "that poop came from a deer", "that poop came from a racoon." At the end there was poop from... the girl! I didn't know if it was pure genius, but I know I would not have wanted to illustrate it.

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